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Tuesday, 13 August 2013

BlackBerry:to be SOLD

When BlackBerry’s leadership
said Monday that it wasexploring a
potential sale of the companyit
also announced that its largest shareholder,Prem Watsa,
the chairman and chief of Fairfax Financial, had resigned from its board. The
reason? “Potential conflicts.”

One in particular.

Watsa himself is interested in
taking BlackBerry private. Sources familiar with the matter tellAllThingsDthat Watsa, whose firm holds a 9.9
percent stake in BlackBerry, has recently been reaching out to private equity
firms, gauging their interest in participating in a buyout of the company.

One firm that’s
almost certainly not interested: Silver Lake Partners, which held talks with
BlackBerry about taking the company private in late 2011/early 2012. Sources
close to the firm, which iscurrently
working with Michael Dellto
take the PC maker that bears his name private in a $24.8 billion deal, said it
has no interest in working with Watsa or BlackBerry at this time.